Flukes
by carlyinrome
Summary: Zoë&River, postBDM. An albatross was a ship’s good luck charm, until some fool killed it. CHINESE: xìng fú: blessed, bèn: stupid


Time goes by. No matter how many dead you bury, the future comes rolling on along.

The first time Zoë sees River at the helm, she balks.

"I'm not some wet nurse," she says after a beat. "I don't have the time to go runnin' after messes."

Mal, stepping past her onto the bridge, is tickled. "God help the man who mistakes you for a wet nurse, Zo'."

But she isn't talking to him, ain't even looking at him: her eyes haven't left the girl, the little ghost of a thing haunting the pilot's chair.

There's work now and again, enough to keep them in the sky at least, and once in a while there'll be a windfall. On one such occasion, Zoë is so pleased by the smell of a fresh apple, by the feel of the tough smooth skin on the pads of her fingers and the palms of her hands that she forgets her promise and takes time from her repast to show River how to split the fruit with a knife, since the girl has the hardest time eating sometimes and her brother's always off God knows where – although, a surgeon, Doc mightn't be half bad with paring apples. River is uncomfortably competent with a blade: one, two, three quick strikes and the apple is broken into six perfect, precise pieces on the table.

"You're right," the girl says, smiling. "Easier to eat this way."

It takes Zoë a long time to relax her grip on her own knife.

The hardest thing is finding sleep at night. Wash was a wild sleeper, always thrashing about, all clumsy and furry. Zoë isn't quite sure what to do with the wide frontier of empty bed at night, of how to wear her body out just chasing sleep, without those nightly bedroom battles fighting off her husband's flailing limbs, without the dance of sex. She's never been one for stagnancy, though, or for feeling sorry for herself, so after a few minutes alone with her thoughts in her empty marriage bed, she ends up haunting the cold, dark corridors of I _Serenity_ /I . Every night.

Mal insists on taking the girl out on jobs now. The pragmatist in Zoë realizes that this is a fine idea, but there's a part of her it riles, a part of her that she's uncomfortable with but not sure how to silence. Most of the time, River is a well-oiled machine; she can turn her weapon on and off as needed. Every once in a while, though, she sticks, and the part of Zoë that is uncomfortable with River being in the field screams.

They get into a scuffle when delivering some merchandise fails to go smooth. Zoë has fought petty skirmishes beside Mal's little albatross so many times without a hitch that she's managed to stuff the nagging uncomfortable feeling to the very back of her mind with all her other hurts, and relegates the girl to the corner of her eye, using the precision of her vision to take aim through the sights of her pistols. She assumes, because she's used to it after so many jobs under her belt, that River will just turn on and then turn out, start spinning and hitting and kicking and justify Mal's confidence in her. But from beneath the thunder of gun blasts, Zoë hears the tear of a whimper. She looks back and the girl's cowering; not from anything in particular, but still not any help to them. Zoë grimaces and then turns from offensive to defensive – never her first choice – turning her back on her opponents and going after River's, four quick shots from the cylinder and then River is surrounded by three very dead bad guys. Zoë turns around and by the time she, Mal, and Jayne have finished the fight and return to little River, the girl has stopped her frightened dance and is just standing in the circle of dead men like a debutante choosing from suitors at a ball, stock still and passionless, almost haughty in her carriage.

Zoë's furious, and on the way back to I _Serenity_ /I she uses this incident as an argument for keeping River on the I _xìng fú_ /I ship from now on, but Mal just laughs and calls it a fluke.

Zoë haunts the empty walkways of I _Serenity_ /I like a shadow. The ship, floating silently through space, has long been her twin: stoic, armored, the greatest passion of Wash, the only one to wrest attention from Mal's stubborn mind. And she keeps flying. That's something, isn't it? Through everything, she keeps flying, even if she feels like an empty hull soaring through a dark, cold universe.

Zoë walks along the catwalk overlooking the cargo bay, looks over into the murky, awning emptiness below. With everyone in bed, with the lights out, with everything peaceful and still, it looks like—

"It looks like the edge of space," a soft, clear voice breaks through the dark.

Zoë turns at the sudden noise. River has appeared soundlessly just feet from her. The girl pads barefoot across the metal grating until there's barely any space between them.

"There ain't no edge," Zoë says. "It's just more space."

"The world is flat," River replies matter-of-factly.

Zoë frowns. She finds it difficult to carry on a conversation with River half the time.

"You should be in bed," Zoë says finally, and then frowns. She didn't know what to say, and then this uncomfortable mothering thing came out, she isn't sure from where. She looks away from the girl, back into the abyss.

"You were up," River answers carefully, looking down too, like Zoë is looking at some attraction below that River doesn't want to miss, "so I thought I'd keep you company."

"I don't need any company. I didn't mean to wake you, now go—"

"You didn't wake me," River says in her somnolent voice, like she hasn't heard Zoë speak. "If you pacing the ship at night woke me, I wouldn't have slept in months."

Zoë feels a rush of cold wash over her insides. Of course River would know, she's a I _bèn_ /I psychic. The rush of cold is followed immediately by a surge of hot rage, and Zoë wishes she had a weapon on her.

"The hardest thing to let go of is ritual," River says slowly, still looking down at the nothing to see in the cargo bay. She raises her eyes to Zoë. "I figure that after the Academy killed me, it would have been really hard to adjust if they hadn't driven me insane."

Zoë wants to say something, and then she really, really doesn't. The silence is better; it's usually better, lately, and she wonders whether it's armor or weapon to her.

Zoë looks away, and in this moment, she misses River settling her little waterlily of a hand down over her own. She looks back to the girl, not really so she won't miss anything else, and River is smiling.

"I could bunk with you for a while," she says. "So it's not so still and empty at night."

The stagnant, haunting thing that's been plaguing Zoë lessens some, and she smiles a little.

"Maybe that'd do me some good, River."

River nods. "Do us both some good."

That night, with River's calm water blossom body lying alongside hers, Zoë sleeps peacefully. And dreams of stars.


End file.
